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So in 15 years it will be 1 inch higher. ONE INCH. While some areas will be more, some will actually be less. A reminder that Hurricane Sandy provided over 10 foot Sea level rise. TEN FEET. We're all still here and coastal areas are rebuilding. People are moving away from coast.
So you have 200 years to move away from the coast from the 1 foot sea level rise
Plate tectonics is still a theory, not a fact but in science theories do not eventually become facts. It is a common misconception but a misconception nevertheless.
And Newton's law of gravity is a fact, but it is not correct in all circumstances.
People see the word "theory" and apply the commonly understood definition to it, concluding it's something that scientific observations have left some doubt about, which isn't the case.
"A word like 'theory' is a technical scientific term," said Michael Fayer, a chemist at Stanford University. "The fact that many people understand its scientific meaning incorrectly does not mean we should stop using it. It means we need better scientific education."
I think the important think to remember is not the sea level. Homes are built very fast, we could easily make the adjustments to our cities for 20 feet over the time that it comes. The issue is the salinity balance in the sea, if the currents are disrupted and the sea warms it will pick up and keep more salt, salt water keeps heat and lowers melting point making it harder to create ice in the winter. This doesn't really affect us 'land folk' except for fishing. The problem with the sea, which already exist is the storm surge, aka the fast drop in atmospheric pressure at the coast. A ten foot wave might not seem like much on a shore but a storm sure can raise the water level making the 10 foot waves much larger. The storms and atmospheric pressure is what we should be looking at instead of water levels. IMO, I think throwing our pollutants in to the oceans for so long is what will be the determining factor.
So in 15 years it will be 1 inch higher. ONE INCH. While some areas will be more, some will actually be less. A reminder that Hurricane Sandy provided over 10 foot Sea level rise. TEN FEET. We're all still here and coastal areas are rebuilding. People are moving away from coast.
So you have 200 years to move away from the coast from the 1 foot sea level rise
#FearMongering is disgusting
Why do you think sea level rise will remain constant when we know ice is melting at an exponential rate?
The oceanography instructor I had was wrong, then. He said the theory was proven when they sent submersibles to the mid-Atlantic trench to observe new crust emerging from it, or some such. He said that before that, the dept. faculty taught that "this is what we think is happening", but after that, they spoke definitively, as in "we know this is how it works".
There is no mid-atlantic trench. There is a mid atlantic ridge, but they are very different features. Second, what emerges there is lava, which can be seen emerging at any volcanic feature on land as well, especially ones where the ridge systems are above water like iceland.
As for observing the mid-atlantic ridge, it was somewhat observed by Alvin in 1979, but that is well after the time period you are talking about. Almost all of the observations have been completed by remote sensing rather than direct observation. And even if there were direct observation of magma coming up from ridges that just provides more evidence to support the theory. Theories in science are supported by fact, they do not eventually become facts. That is a misconception.
So while I understand why you think the professor said those things, I highly suspect it is a bit of faulty recollection going on.
And Newton's law of gravity is a fact, but it is not correct in all circumstances.
People see the word "theory" and apply the commonly understood definition to it, concluding it's something that scientific observations have left some doubt about, which isn't the case.
"A word like 'theory' is a technical scientific term," said Michael Fayer, a chemist at Stanford University. "The fact that many people understand its scientific meaning incorrectly does not mean we should stop using it. It means we need better scientific education."
No newton's law of gravity is a law. It is not a fact. Facts are observations, like when something falls towards earth. Laws are usually mathematical constructs to explain facts aka observations.
That report is based on data from the past 80 years. AGW has accelerated in the last 20 or so years so the 1.7 mm/year is heavily biased by pre-AGW data.
Those data are also from in situ observations, i.e., measurements made at specific locations where ocean meets land (harbors, mostly). To get a global average from that means one is extrapolating from land/sea spots to the entire ocean.
A far better way to measure sea level rise is with remote sensing via satellites. They can scan the entire ocean level and get complete coverage. From that data set the rise is about 3.4mm/year.
3.4mm is still not a big number and if it stayed constant at that, you are right that there is not a lot for us to worry about in our lifetimes. But the fear here is that it will not stay constant at 3.4, that as the ocean warms it will double its rate every 30-40 years. The reason why is that a warmer ocean not only expands (and rises) it also releases CO2 and methane (a lot of which is frozen at the bottom of the ocean) as it warms. This is a classic positive feedback loop, which always end up badly.
Wood's Hole and Scripps' Oceanographic Institutes researcher's work really did prove plate tectonics in the 60s and 70s both with your mentioned submersibles witnessing the creation of new crust at mid-oceanic ridges (not trenches) as well as the symetric matched basaltic magnetic "stripes" with ship-board magnetometers. These stripes clearly delineated the creation of thousands of square miles of new crust created "in the breach" as the continents moved away from each other. North America, Eurasia, and Africa were one continent in the Permian, about 270 million years ago. The Atlantic grew from an African-rift valley situation into a 3-4000 mile wide ocean since then.
If you think about it further, while the Atlantic is currently growing, then the Pacific must be shrinking. Indeed it is. The Pacific oceanic plate is subducting (rammed under) the continent of Asia in the Japan trench (these are plate DESTRUCTION ZONES, not creation zones) and other features along the west rim of the Pacific. This continuous cramming down of these massive rock plates drives the horrific earthquakes (e.g. Fukishima a couple of years ago and the Anchorage Earthquake of 1964) and also when the plate tips are subducted far enough down to melt, they drive the great volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa.
If we are unfortunate enough to have some big eruptions that emit a lot of CO2 and sulfuric acid we could have even more of a greenhouse effect than just from the industrial activity. I will say that there is also a possibility that eruptions with a great ash dump into the atmosphere could shield the earth and cause a cool-down. However, this would probably just be a 3-5 year "blip" to the overall warming curve for the next couple of hundred years.
Alvin made it to MAR in 1979 but all of these lines of evidence, while supporting plate tec, or more precisely sea floor spreading, it is incorrect to use the word "proved". It is important in science to use the words, theory and proved correctly because it leads to misconceptions in the minds of the public. Many people think incorrectly that overtime and with evidence theories are "proven" and become facts. That is not true. We do not prove theories, we support them with evidence. Gravitational theory is still a theory, it always will be. It is also a law, which is mathematical relationship. Theories are constantly refined as more information become available. Many science deniers take the perfectly normal adjustments made to theories when new information becomes available as something to latch on to and proclaim "that is JUST a theory" in order to fulfill their own agendas.
No newton's law of gravity is a law. It is not a fact.
To be accurate here, Newton's law is considered by physicists to be a theory. It is still tested in various ways, which is what happens with all theories in physics. The truth, as far as physics is concerned, there are no certainties, everything is a theory. Humans model reality with mathematics but there is no reason to believe that nature uses the same equations, if it even uses any at all.
Newton's "law" is only called a law out of respect for Newton. Don't read too much into it.
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